Monday 26 September 2011

Getting Started with AutoCAD

Now that we know a little history of AutoCAD, its time that we start the software. Well here is how we go, I know that all of you know how to kick start the application, but this is more of a procedure.

Now I'm going to go about this based on two platforms. Even though once we're in it, there is not much of a difference.

For Windows users




or just click on the icon on the desktop.

For Mac users


or of-course you can click on the icon on the dock, or even simple, use the spotlight!!!


So once you've done that, please wait for a few seconds for the application to load up. Once its done, you'll get a screen as shown below. The different parts are marked below.



WCS - World Co-ordinate System
UCS  - User Co-ordinate System

So as we all know this software is built using GUI - Graphical user interface. Thus enabling the user to interact more efficiently when drafting.

The various options on the screen editor is marked on the above picture and the explanations are given below.

To explain the various parts of the AutoCAD screen editor, we'll divide it into 4 Areas. Namely,

  • Drawing Area
  • Menu Area
  • Command Area
  • Status Area

Drawing Area
The drawing area is the area where the drawings are created and occupies 80% of the window space. When the mouse is moved across the screen, we would see two crossed lines across the screen. This is the drawing editor cursor. The cursor is used to select the position on the screen and drawings are created.

Menu Area
The menu area is the area that we see on the top of the screen and we could select the commands from here. This is quite easy as the options are in written format and in icon formats.

Command Area
The command area is the area that we could find below the drawing window and is a very important area where the commands used in AutoCAD are entered through keyboard. Here AutoCAD prompts for necessary informations to complete the command.

Status Area
The status area is the bottom-most area in the window, found below the command area. This is used for, as the name suggests, displaying current status informations regarding the work done on the Drawing area.

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